A would-be robber learned a valuable lesson the hard way: Don’t mess with a mom who will do whatever it takes to protect her kids.

After leaving a Baytown, Tex., CVS store on Friday Dorothy Baker was preparing to drive home in her minivan with her two sons, Xavier, 5 and Jaden, 2, when a man popped up in the back seat wielding a knife and demanded $200 from her. “I told him I didn’t have that kind of cash, I had about $20 in my account,” she told KHOU-TV in Houston. “He said I better figure out a way to get it, or my kids were going to get hurt.”

The assailant leaped up into the front close to Baker, a married mother of six, but she had already dialed 911 on her mobile phone. At that point, her fighting instincts kicked in, and she wrestled the knife out of the man’s hands and then punched him, knocking him into the passenger seat, all while still driving the vehicle. She swerved, and intentionally ran off the road in an attempt to disorient him, or even hit a pole, which might catapult him through the car’s windshield.

Eventually she stopped the vehicle after the struggle, which left her with several cuts and scratches. “I told him to get the hell out of my car,” she said. “He got out and started running and the next thing I thought was if he gets away he can do this to somebody else.”

So instead of driving to safety, Baker went after him. When she caught up, she intended to simply bump him, but actually hit the man and ran him over, police said. “He kind of ‘zagged’ and I turned, intending to clip him in the side or something to get him to stop,” she said. “And I ended up running completely over him.”

Authorities identified the attacker as Ismael Martinez, 53, an ex-con who was imprisoned after being convicted of rape in 1976. He was hospitalized and is listed in stable condition. No charges have been filed yet.

Baker said she believes Martinez had been watching her earlier in the day while she was grocery shopping near where her car was parked. When he popped up in her van, she recognized him immediately.

“You don’t come after people with kids,” she later told KTRK-TV in Houston. “And I told him, he messed with the wrong… witch.”